Mike always loves ships. When he was older, he said, “I'm going to be a soldier.” But his eyes were not very1and he did not get in.

    Then he said, “I'm going to2a small boat and I'm going around the world.” But boats were very expensive, and Mike did not have enough3

    Last summer Mike found a swimming4near his house. The lessons did not cost very5 and Mike began going to the school at every end of the week and having6. Now he is a good swimmer.

    Last week a little boy said to him, “You're a very good swimmer. How do7learn to swim so well?”

    “I'm not good at all,” Mike said and he smiled. “8 I'm in the water, I say to myself, “There are 9fishes behind me!” Then I'm very afraid, and I10quickly.”

C

    When Matty Sallin，34，was working on a degree in art and technology at New York University，he got interesting homework in electronics class．He decided to create an alarm clock(闹钟)．

    "Everybody has to deal with these every day，and they are really unpleasant!"he says．He asked different people what they would like to wake up to instead of a noisy alarm．A lot of them said，"The smell of bacon(培根肉)"．

    So Sallin and two classmates invented a new kind of alarm clock：a wooden box with a pig face and a digital clock that uses the smell of cooking bacon instead of the sound to wake someone up．He explains．"There's no danger of burning，because I built it carefully．It uses halogen light bulbs(卤素灯)instead of a fire for cooking and turns off automatically after ten minutes．Yes,the clock itself can do it．Just a few easy steps are needed to set the alarm．"

    "What you do is to put some frozen bacon in the night before and set the alarm，"says Sallin．

    "If you set the alarm for 8：00,it will turn on at 7：50 and slow cook for ten minutes under the halogen bulbs．"he says，Then the bulbs turn off and a fan blows the smell out through the nose of the pig．

    "So instead of an alarm，  ▲，"says Sallin．"Then you can open the door on the side and pull the bacon out and eat it．"

    When Sallin was a kid，he spent a lot of time making drawing of inventions．"I wanted to make an lift in my backyard and a special tree house．"he says．"But I never really thought I'd be called an inventor!"

    Sallin got an A in the class and went on to other things—but people continue to hear about his invention and email him every day asking where they can buy his alarm clock．

    Mr Smith gave his wife money every Friday evening. His wife always spent it all the next Wednesday, so that for the next three days she had no money to spend at all. One day Mr Smith asked her," But how did you spend all that money?" She answered, "I don't know." So one Friday evening, Mr Smith gave her money together with an exercise book and a pencil. He said to his wife, "Please write down how you spend the money." Next Tuesday, his wife had no money again. Mr Smith took the exercise book to see how she had spent it. "I have done what you told me, "she said gladly. She had written "Friday, I got 18 pounds from Mr Smith." on the first page, and on the second page, she wrote, "Tuesday, I have spent it all."

    Sally Ride was born in California in 1951. She was the first American woman to travel into space. She loved to play tennis and wanted to be a tennis player when she was young. But after three months' professional（专业的）training, she changed her mind. She went to Stanford University and started to study science. She studied stars and planets. She did researches at the university and got her PhD in astrophysics（天体物理学博士学位）after several years' hard work.

    In 1977, she took a test to become an astronaut. And then she was picked up from over 8, 000 people. In order to realize her dream of going into space, she had to get different kinds of special and difficult training. She learned how to fly a plane, how to jump out of a plane as well as how to operate（操作）special machines.

    Sally and four other astronauts flew a spaceship called Challenger on Jun. 18, 1983. She became the first American woman to travel into space. Later, she taught at the University of California. Then she wrote seven books on space for children, encouraging children to study science. Unfortunately, she died in 2012.